Stardock announces beta
testing of Galactic Civilizations III is now underway for founding supporters of
the space strategy sequel, apologizing to those who want in on this that they
are still offering the game for $5.00 less than its eventual full price.
This trailer
accompanies the news, and here's word:

We’ve officially launched the beta! Bells are ringing, birds are singing, and
it’s a beautiful day to dig up the archives of a forgotten race’s reality TV
shows and use them to placate a restive populace that for some reason doesn’t
see the value in mandatory six-month stints working the factories of the nearest
forgeworld.

To all of our Founders, thank you so much for your early support. Elite
Founders, your feedback and bug reporting has been invaluable in getting
Galactic Civilizations III ready for a wider audience. Fire up your Steam
client, and it should patch your install to the beta automatically.

To anyone waiting for Galactic Civilizations III to be regular price before
diving in, you’ll have to wait a little longer. Sadly, the game is $44.99 during
the beta rather than its regular $49.99 price. We beg your forgiveness.

Follow the development of Galactic Civilizations III throughout the beta, ask
the team your questions live, and get sneak peeks of upcoming builds every
Friday on the
official Stardock Twitch channel.

The Galactic Civilizations III beta includes:

Race-specific tech trees – Each race discovers the secrets of creation
in its own way. Look out for Drengin invasions a whole age before anyone
else can pull one off.

Ideology rework – Get an entire invasion fleet for free, take control of
all planets inside your sphere of influence, and more!

Huge hulls – For when you absolutely, positively, have to kill every
last filthy alien in the quadrant.

New colonization events – Thirty more events will challenge your
ideology whenever you bring the light of civilization to a new world.

Are the combat physics improved in this? I liked the ultra-modular ship customization in GalCiv2 until I realized that all weapon effects pretty much spawned from the center of the ship model no matter what, and your designs didn't really matter anyways (only the actual modules you put on). I was hoping to see articulating turrets launching individual projectiles, ship damage states, and stuff like that; have some actual detail to the battles.